The Ages of Chaos

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  "What is it?" she asked, and one of the women, who went out every morning to shop for fresh milk and fresh fruits, told her, "It is the advance guard of Carolin's army; they will establish their camp here, and from here they will move down again across the Plains of Valeron, to give battle to King Rakhal," her face twisted with dislike, and she spat.

  "You are a partisan of Carolin, then?" Romilly asked.

  "A partisan of Carolin? I am," the woman said vehemently, "Rakhal drove my father from his small holding in the Venza Hills and gave his lands to a paxman of that greedy devil Lyondri Hastur! Mother died soon after we left our lands, and Father is with Carolin's army - I shall ride out tomorrow, if Clea will give me leave, and try to find my father, and ask if he has word of my brothers, who fled when we were driven from our lands. I am here with the Sisterhood because my brothers were with the armies and could no longer make a home for me; they would have found a man for me to marry, but the man they chose was one Lyondri and his master Rakhal had left in peace, and I would not many any man who sat snug in his home while my father was exiled!"

  "No one could blame you, Marelie," said Romilly. She thought of her travels in the Hellers with Orain and Carlo and the other exiled men; Alaric, who had suffered even more from Lyondri Hastur than Marelie's family. "I too am a follower of Carolin, even though I know nothing about him, except that men whose judgment I trust, call him a good man and a good king."

  She wondered if Orain and Dom Carlo were in the camp. She might go with Merelie, when she went to seek her father in the camp. Orain had been her friend, even though she was a woman, and she hoped he had come safe through the winter of war.

  "Look," said Clea, pointing, "There is the Hastur banner in blue with the silver fir-tree. King Carolin is in the camp - the king himself."

  And where Orain is, Carolin is not far away, Romilly remembered. That night in the tavern, when he had wanted her to make a diversion - had that shadowy figure to whom he spoke, been Carolin himself?

  Would he welcome a visit from her? Or would he only find it an embarrassment? She decided that when next Jandria visited the hostel - she had been coming and going all year, on courier duty between Serrais and the cities to the south, Dalereuth and Temora - she would ask what Jandria thought.

  She should have remembered that when a telepath's mind was drawn unexpectedly to someone she had not seen for a time, it was not likely to be coincidence. It was the next day, when she had finished working with the black stallion, and finally led him back into the stable - after a year of work, he was perfectly trained, and docile as a child, and she had spoken to the housemother of the hostel about, perhaps, presenting him to the king's own self - she saw Jandria at the door of his stall.

  "Romy! I was sure I would find you here! He has come a long way from that first day when I saw you bridle him, and we were all sure he would kill you!"

  Jandria was dressed as if she had just come from a long journey; dusty boots, dust-mask such as the Drylanders used for travel hanging unfastened at the side of her face. Romilly ran to embrace her.

  "Janni! I didn't know you were back?"

  "I have not been here long, little sister," Jandria said, returning her hug with enthusiasm. Romilly smoothed back her flying hair with grubby hands, and said, "Let me unsaddle him, and then we will have some time to talk before supper. Isn't he wonderful? I have named him Sunstar - that is how he thinks of himself, he told me."

  Jandria said, "He is beautiful indeed. But you should not give the horses such elaborate names, nor treat them with such care - they are to go to soldiers and they should have simple names, easy to remember. And above all you should not grow so fond of them, since they are to be taken from you very soon - they are for the army, though some of them will be ridden by the women of the Sisterhood if they go with Carolin's men when they break camp. You have seen the camp? You know the time is at hand when all these horses are to go to the army. You should not involve yourself so deeply with them."

  "I can't help growing fond of them," Romilly said, "It is how I train them; I win their love and trust and they do my will."

  Jandria sighed. "We must have that laran of yours, and yet I hate to use you like this, child," she said, stroking Romilly's soft hair. "Orain told me, when first he brought you to us, that you have knowledge of sentry-birds. I am to take you to Carolin's camp, so you can show a new handler how to treat them. Go and dress yourself for riding, my dear."

  "Dress for riding? What do you think I have been doing all morning?" Romilly demanded.

  "But not outside the hostel," Jandria said severely, and suddenly Romilly saw herself through Janni's eyes, her hair tangled and with bits of straw in it, her loose tunic unfastened because it was hot and sweaty, showing the curve of her breasts. She had put on a patched and too-tight pair of old breeches she had found in the box of castoffs which the Sisterhood kept for working about the house. She flushed and giggled.

  "Let me go and change, then, I'll only be a minute or so."

  She washed herself quickly at the pump, ran into the room she shared now with Clea and Betta, and combed her tousled hair. Then she got swiftly into her own breeches and a clean under-tunic. Over her head she slipped the crimson tunic of the Sisterhood and belted it with her dagger. Now she looked, she knew, not like a woman in men's clothes, nor yet like a boy, or a street urchin, but like a member of the Sisterhood; a professional Swordswoman, a soldier for Carolin's armies. She could not quite believe it was herself in that formal costume. Yet this was what she was.

  Jandria smiled with approval when she came back; Janni too wore the formal Swordswoman tunic of crimson, a sword in her belt, a dagger at her throat, her small ensign gleaming in her left ear. Side by side, the two swordswomen left the gates of the hostel and rode toward the city wall of Serrais.

  Chapter Four

  Now Romilly had a closer look at the encampment of Carolin's men, the silver and blue fir-tree banner of the Hasturs King above the central tent which, Romilly imagined, must be either the king's personal quarters or the headquarters of his staff. They rode toward the encampment, past orderly stable-lines, a cookhouse where army cooks were boiling something that smelled savory, and a field roped off, where a Swordswoman Romilly knew only slightly was giving a group of unshaven recruits a lesson in unarmed combat; some of them looked cross and disgruntled and Romilly suspected that they did not like being schooled by a woman; others, rubbing bumps and bruises where she had tossed them handily on the ground, were watching with serious attention.

  A guard was posted near the central part of the camp, and he challenged them. Jandria gave him a formal salute.

  "Swordswoman Jandria and Apprentice Romilly," she said, "and I seek the Lord Orain, who has sent for me."

  Romilly tried to make herself small, supposing that the guard would say something sneering or discourteous, but he merely returned her salute and called a messenger, a boy about Romilly's age, to request Lord Orain's attention.

  She would have recognized the tall, gaunt figure, the lean hatchet-jaw, anywhere; but now he was dressed in the elegant Hastur colors and wore a jewelled pendant and a fine sword, and Romilly knew that if she had met him first like this, she would have been too much in awe of him to speak. He bowed formally to the women, and his voice was the schooled accent of a nobleman, with no trace of the rough-country dialect.

  "Mastra'in, it is courteous of you to come so quickly at my summons," he said, and Jandria replied, just as formally, that it was her pleasure and duty to serve the king's presence.

  A little less formally, Orain went on "I remembered that Romilly was schooled in the training, not only of hawks but of sentry-birds. We have a laranzu come with us from Tramontane, but he has had no experience with sentry-birds, and these are known to you, damisela. Will it please you to introduce the skills of handling them to our laranzu?"

  "I'd be glad to do it, Lord Orain," she said, then burst out, "but only if you stop calling me damisela in that tone!"

/>   A ragged flush spread over Orain's long face. He did not meet her eyes. "I am sorry - Romilly. Will you come this way?"

  She trailed Jandria and Orain, who walked arm in arm. Jandria asked, "How's Himself, then?"

  Orain shrugged. "All the better for the news you sent ahead, love. But did you see Lyondri face to face?"

  Romilly saw the negative motion of the older woman's head. "At the last I was too cowardly; I sent Romilly in my place. If I had met him then-" she broke off. "I do not know if you saw those villages last year, along the old North road. Still blighted, all of them . . ." she shuddered; even at this distance, Romilly could see. "I am glad I am an honest Swordswoman, not a leronis! If I had had to have a part in the blighting of the good land, I know not how I could ever again have raised my eyes to the clean day!"

  Was this, Romilly wondered, the reason why The MacAran had quarreled with the Towers, why Ruyven had had to run away, and he had driven the leronis from his home without giving her leave to test Romilly and Mallina for laran! Laran warfare, even the little she had seen of it, was terrifying.

  Orain said soberly, "Carolin has said he will not fight that kind of war unless it is used against him. But if Rakhal has laranzu'in to bring against his armies, then he must do what he must; you know that as well as I, Janni." He sighed. "You had better come and tell him what you learned in Hali, though the news will make him sorrowful. As for Romilly-" he turned and considered her for a moment, "The bird-handlers' quarters are yonder," he said, pointing. "The bird-master and his apprentice have that tent there, and no doubt you will find them both around behind it. This way, Janni."

  Jandria and Orain went off arm-in-arm toward the central tent where the banner flew, and Romilly went on in the indicated direction, feeling shy and afraid. How was she to talk to a strange laranzu? Then she straightened her back and drew herself up proudly. She was a MacAran, a Swordswoman, and a hawkmistress; she need not be afraid of anyone. They had summoned her to their aid, not the other way round. Behind the tent she saw a roughly dressed lad of thirteen or so, carrying a great basket, and if she had not seen him she could have smelled him, for it stank of carrion. On heavy perches she saw three familiar, beautiful-ugly forms, and hurried to them, laughing.

  "Diligence! Prudence, love!" She held out her hands and the birds made a little dipping of their heads; they knew her again, and the old, familiar rapport reached out, clung. "And where is Temperance? Ah, there you are, you beauty!"

  "Don't get too close to them," a somehow-familiar voice said behind her, "Those creatures can peck out your eyes; the apprentice there lost a finger-nail to one of them yesterday!"

  She turned and saw a slight, bearded man, in the dark robes not unlike those of a monk at Nevarsin, scowling down at her; then it seemed as if the strange bearded face dissolved, for she knew the voice, and she cried out, incredulous.

  "Ruyven! Oh, I should have known, when they said it was a laranzu from Tramontana - Ruyven, don't you know me?"

  She was laughing and crying at once, and Ruyven stared down at her, his mouth open.

  "Romy," he said at last. "Sister, you are the last person in the world I would have expected to see here! But - in this garb-" he looked her up and down, blushing behind the strangeness of the beard. "What are you doing? How came you-"

  "I was sent to handle the birds, silly," she said, "I bore them all the way from the foothills of the Hellers into Nevarsin, and from Nevarsin to Caer Donn. See, they know me." She gestured, and they made little clucking noises of pleasure and acknowledgement. "But what are you doing here, then?"

  "The same as you," he said. "The Lord Orain's son and I are bredin; he sent word to me, and I came to join Carolin's army. But you-" he looked at the dress of the Sisterhood with surprise and distaste, "Does Father know you are here? How did you win his consent?"

  "The same way you won consent from him to train your laran within the walls of Tramontana Tower," she said, grimacing, and he sighed.

  "Poor father. He has lost both of us now, and Darren-" he sighed. "Ah, well. Done is done. So you wear the earring of the Sisterhood, and I the robes of the Tower, and both of us follow Carolin - have you seen the king?"

  She shook her head. "No, but I travelled for a time with his followers, Orain and Dom Carlo of Blue Lake."

  "Carlo I know not. But you handle sentry-birds? I remember you had always a deft hand with horses and hounds, and . I suppose hawks as well, so the MacAran Gift should fit you to handle these. Have you had laran training then, Sister?"

  "None; I developed it by working with the beasts and the birds," she said, and he shook his head, distressed.

  "Laran untrained is a dangerous thing, Romy. When this is ended, I will find a place for you in a Tower. Do you realize, you have not yet greeted me properly." He hugged her and kissed her cheek. "So: you know these birds? So far I have seen none but Lord Orain who could handle them."

  "I taught him what he knows of sentry-birds," Romilly said, and went to the perches, holding out her hand; with her free hand she jerked the knot loose, and Prudence made a quick little hop to sit on her wrist. She should have brought a proper glove. Well, somewhere in Carolin's camp there must be a proper falconer's glove.

  And that made her think, with sudden pain, of Preciosa. She had had no sight of the hawk since they came into this drylands country. But then, Preciosa had left her before they came to the glaciers, and rejoined her again when she had returned to the green hills. It might be that Preciosa would return to her, some day ...

  . . . and if not, she is free ... a free wild thing, belonging to the winds of the sky and to herself. ...

  "Can you get me a glove?" she asked, "I can, if I must, handle Prudence with my bare hands, because she is small and gentle, but the others are heavier and have not such a delicate touch."

  "That creature, delicate?" Ruyven said, laughing, then the smile slid off as he saw how serious she was. "Prudence, you call her? Yes, I will send my helper for a glove for you, and then you must tell me their names and how you tell them apart."

  The morning passed quickly, but they spoke only of the birds; not touching at all on their shared past, or on Falconsward. At midday a bell was rung, and Ruyven, saying that it was dinnertime in the army mess, told her to come along.

  "There are others of the Sisterhood in the camp," he said, "They sleep in their hostel in the city - but I dare say you know more about them than I. You can eat at their table, if you will - and I suppose it would be better, since they do not mix with the regular soldiers except when they must, and you cannot explain to the whole army that you are my sister."

  She joined the long lines of the army mess, taking her bread and stew to the separate table with the seven or eight women of the Sisterhood who were employed with the army - mostly as couriers, or as trainers of horses or instructors in unarmed combat - one, in fact, as an instructor in swordplay. Some of the women she had met in the hostel and none of them seemed even slightly surprised to see her there. Jandria did not appear. Romilly supposed that she had been kept with Lord Orain and the higher officers, who evidently had their mess apart.

  "What are you doing?" one asked her, and she replied briefly that she had been sent for to work with sentry-birds.

  "I thought that was work for lerosin," one of the women remarked, "But then you have red hair, are you too laran-gifted?"

  "I have a knack for working with animals," Romilly said, "I do not know if it is laran or something else." She did not want to be treated with the distant awe with which they regarded the leroni. When she had finished her meal she rejoined Ruyven at the bird-handlers' quarters, and by the end of the day he was handling the birds as freely as she did herself.

  Dusk was falling, and they were settling the birds on then' perches, to be carried in under the tent-roof, when Ruyven looked up.

  "King Carolin's right-hand man," he said briefly, "We see Carolin's self but seldom; word comes always through Lord Orain. You know him, I understand."

&
nbsp; "I travelled with him for months; but they thought me a boy," Romilly said, without explaining. Orain came to them and said to Ruyven, ignoring Romilly, "How soon will the birds be ready for use?"

  "A tenday, perhaps."

  "And Derek has not yet arrived," said Orain, scowling. "Do you think you could persuade the leronis ..."

  Ruyven said curtly, "The battlefield is no place for the Lady Maura. Add to that, Lyondri is of her kin; she said she would handle the birds but she made me promise to her that she would not be asked to fight against him. I blame her not; this war that sets brother against brother, father against son, is no place for a woman."

  Orain said, with his dry smile, "Nor for a man; yet the world will go as it will, and not as you or I would have it. This war was not of my making, nor of Carolin's. Nevertheless, I respect the sentiments of the Lady Maura, so we must have another to fly the sentry-birds. Romilly-" he looked down at her, and for a moment there was a trace of the old warmth in his voice, "Will you fly them for Carolin, then, my girl?"

  So when he wants something from me, he can be halfway civil, even to a woman? Anger made her voice cold. She said, "As for that, vai dom, you must ask my superiors in the Sisterhood; I am apprentice, and my will does not rule what I may do."

  "Oh, I think Jandria will not make trouble about that," Orain said, smiling. "The Sisterhood will lend you to us, I have no doubt at all."

  Romilly bowed without answering. But she thought, not if I have anything to say about it.

  They rode back to the hostel in the light of the setting sun, the sky clear and cloudless; Romilly had never ceased to miss the evening rain or sleet in the hills. It still seemed to her that the country here was dry, parched, inhospitable. Jandria tried to talk a little of the army, of the countryside, to point out to Romilly the Great House of Serrais, perched on the low hillside, where the Hastur-kind had established their seat, as at Thendara and Hali and Aldaran and Carcosa in the hills; but Romilly was silent, hardly speaking, lost in thought.